Friday, 30 January 2015

Hello my friends, how are you all? I'm so happy to tell you all, that I've finished my Leftie, at last!!!! I cast this shawl on by Martina Behm back in August, last year. I bought the Five Moons Sweetie box of mini skeins from Unwind Brighton with this pattern in mind.

Zena and I had decided to knit it at the same time, we even met up in Birmingham for a coffee and to knit on them together. It didn't take Zena long to finish hers but I admit I got bored with mine and started working on other projects.

I picked it back up this month as I wanted to finish all my WIPs before I cast on anything new, this was the last WIP that I worked as it was the largest. After picking it back up and knitting on it monogamously, I actually began to enjoy it. I knit on it whenever I could including car knitting, I loved seeing the bright pop of colours running across the shawl.

Here is my finished Leftie, I love how it turned out, the colours are so vibrant, this is going to be for a friend's birthday, I hope she likes it. I'm just happy it's finished so I could start some new projects.

Wednesday, 28 January 2015

I'm back today to share with you what I've been working on since I've finished all my WIP's, the first project is a test knit, the first one of the year.

It's a gorgeous shawl design by Melody of Manderine's which is knit in a sportweight yarn, I've never knit a shawl in this weight yarn before so was looking forward to seeing it finished and been able to wrap it around my shoulders with this cold weather we're having.

I wasn't sure I had any sportweight yarn in my stash but when I looked through the yarn that I'd received for Christmas, I saw that I'd got some Rosy Green Wool, Cheeky Merino Joy Sportweight. I'd like to just tell you a little about this fabulous yarn company.

Rosy Green Wool is a company that only sells ethically sourced, organic merino wool, which is extremely soft. All their yarn is certified by the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), an organisation that ensures the workers are treated fairly, the sheep are not harmed in any way and the yarn is strictly checked for harmful substances, you can read more about it here.

I was looking forward to taking part in the test knit after seeing some sneak peeks of the shawl on Melody's Instagram feed, it looked stunning!!!! I'd also test knit for Melody before and love her style, I test knit her very first pattern, Pinecone and Mulberry, a beautiful, textured hat that I gave to my daughter, she stills says this is her favourite hat, ever!!!!!

It didn't take long to finish and is all ready to be blocked, the pattern will be released on the 5th February and is when I'll show you the full finished design.

Now from gorgeous organic wool to some cheap yarn from a supermarket, I never buy acrylic yarn but when I went food shopping at Lidl, I saw a pack of 4x50g balls of chunky acrylic/wool blend for £2.99. It was enough to knit the Latte Baby Coat that I've been wanting to knit for ages, I hadn't got the wool in my stash though.

I loved the colour and the tweed look, it felt soft and didn't feel cheap but it was acrylic!!!! I couldn't make up my mind, I walked around the store, finishing up my shopping, thinking about what to do. In the end my husband just said get it and give it a go.

So I did and when I got home, I downloaded the pattern ready to cast on.

Friday evening, I cast on the hooded version of the Latte Baby Coat using my new Knit Pro Marblz Interchangable needles. I'm really pleased with them, they needle and join is very smooth and the added bonus is they are pretty to look at, just a pleasure to knit with.

Now back to the wool, I've knit the body of the cardigan and have just got to pick up and knit the borders, the jury is still out. I can't make my mind up, it's knit up lovely, it's soft and doesn't look cheap but on the other hand it doesn't feel like a 100% natural fibre that I'm used too. The test will be, how well it washes, I'm not saying I'll never buy an acrylic blend again but my first choice will be a more natural blend of wool.

I'm on the third promt of 26 Books with Bringing Up the Burns and the prompt is 3: A Book You Pick Solely because Of The Cover.

I've chosen The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield, I think you can see was I was drawn to the cover, designed by Cath Kidston.

The book itself is a very enjoyable read, set in the 1930's, written in diary form, a humorous account of her family and everyday life.

Monday, 19 January 2015

I'm back today to tell you about the Personal Mystery Sock Club 2015, a great way to start using up some of your stash. I saw this idea over on Instagram, where Aunty's Alice Loves To Knit, decided she was going to use up some of her stash to knit socks.

If you have lots of sock yarn that you want to use up, feel free to join in, if you're on Instagram the hashtag is #personalmysterysockclub2015 where you'll be able to see everyone's progress over the coming months. I'm a big fan of IG, there are so many gorgeous photos to look at and lots of inspiration for different crafts. If you want to find me, I'm Tinkhickman on there, if you're part of the IG community, let me know.

Alice picked twelve skeins of sock yarn from her stash and sealed them into brown paper bags so each month she picked a bag without knowing which skein was in there. When people saw this on IG, lots of us wanted to join in and so it grew with many of us taking part.

It's all very informal and you don't have to chose 12 skeins, some people have picked six, not all are going to knit socks, there were some suggestions of mittens and shawls. I decided on putting together nine "mystery" bags using the yarn in the top photo.

There were certain socks I wanted to knit this year so my decision on the yarn was based on that. I wanted a pair of DK weight, my husband wanted another pair, I saw a pattern for some "Fair Isle" style socks and I wanted to knit a pair of baby socks. I then sealed the bags and set them aside, all ready to cast on once I'd finished some WIPs.

I finished my WIPs at the end of last week, so the first bag I picked at random contained the yarn for baby socks, My First Regia. This itty bitty ball of wool is just 25g and is especially sold to knit small baby items, I bought it to knit my grandson a pair of socks.

It took me a while to chose a pattern as I wanted a mini version of the socks that I knit for myself. I wanted one with a heel flap, a lot were using DK and I wanted a 4ply pattern and some looked a very odd shape sock. Eventually, I decided on the Stretch Baby Socks by Patons which is a free pattern with sizes ranging from 3 months to 2 years.

They were super quick to knit, I cast them on late Thursday afternoon and they were finished by the end of the evening. I knit the smallest size and was eager for my daughter to arrive on Friday so I could try them on him. After having a little cuddle, I showed him his new socks which he immediately grabbed for and put in his mouth!!!!! I then went to put them on his feet and they wouldn't go over his little chubby ankles!!!!!!

I wasn't too upset as I've got enough wool left to knit him a bigger size and this tiny pair will go to my friend's grandson who is due in April. It's just another excuse to knit another pair of sweet little baby socks.

Thank you for stopping by and let me know if you're going to take part in The Personal Mystery Sock Club.

Thursday, 8 January 2015

Hello, my friends. I'm back today to share one of my concocted soup recipes, it's Spiced Sweet Potato and Carrot Soup. I don't particularly enjoy cooking but I love making homemade soups and mixing different flavours, this is a thick, warming soup with a kick, perfect for those cold, winter days.

Ingredients

2 onions, finely chopped

2 large sweet potatoes, cubed

6-8 carrots, sliced

1 fresh chilli (or to your acquired taste)

Garlic

1tsp chopped corriander

2tsp chopped ginger

2tsp turmeric

2 vegetable stock cubes

1 litre boiled water

Salt and Pepper

Olive oil

Finely chop the onions and fry in olive oil until translucent. Add the rest of the ingredients, I used a whole chilli which gave it a bit of a kick so just add a small amount to taste if you don't want it too spicy. Mix the stock cubes with the boiling water and add to the ingredients. Simmer until the vegetables are soft, leave to cool then blend until smooth, adding more boiling water if needed.

Tuesday, 6 January 2015

Happy New Year, it's been a while but I decided to take a little break over Christmas and the New Year. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas if you celebrate and a good start to the new year. As usual I had a happy, hectic, busy Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my large,slightly mad family then I had a very quiet week with lots of time on my hands to knit, we didn't even go to the Sales, this year.

On Boxing Day, my eldest daughter, her partner and my grandson went back to Stoke to spend time with her partner's family and the youngest went to Cornwall to spend time with her boyfriend and his family so it was just me and the husband. I did enjoy the peace and quiet, though I do miss my family when they're not here, As I just mentioned, it did give me time to knit as much as I wanted and to think of my goals for 2015. I was instantly drawn to this quote that I saw over on Pinterest, I think sometimes you do need to strip things back and just enjoy the simple things, which will be one of my goals for 2015.

One thing I'll be doing in 2015 is to start a knitting diary after seeing Dani's aka Little Bobbins over on her podcast. I did have a small notebook which I kept notes and scraps of yarn but Dani's took it to a whole new level. I picked up a large, wire bound notebook with beautiful, high quality, crisp, white pages which I can't wait to fill with lots of knitty goodness and photos.

The first page of my knitting diary has been given to my Knitting Goals 2015. I think they are all quite do-able and I hope to achieve them all. Here are my goals.......

1: To finish all my WIPs before casting on a new project. I had eight projects on the needles, I frogged two, I finished four over the last week and have two to finish.

2: Knit an adult size sweater for myself, I'd already cast on Old Romance by Joji Locotelli but didn't get very far with it before I started my Christmas gift knitting.

4: Knit at least 6 pairs of socks, I'm taking part in the Personal Mystery Sock Club 2015 organised by Aunty's Alice Loves To Knit over on Instagram. I'll share more details of this fun idea in a seperate post.

5: Knit from stash, I know I say this every year!!!!! I'm part of a yarn club so I will still get new yarn every three months. If I want to knit another sweater I will need to buy the yarn as I don't have a sweater quantiy or if I go to any knitting events, I know I'll end up buying something but as a whole I'll be knitting from stash.

I just wanted to show you my secret Christmas project that I was knitting for Kerry, a very good friend of mine, these are the O.W.L Mittens by Celeste Young which was published in The Unofficial Harry Potter Knits, that was kindly gifted to me by a lovely IG friend.

Kerry is Harry Potter mad so needless to say she was absolutely thrilled with her gift. She couldn't believe that I knit all those spells into the mitts. I loved every stitch and I know they will be well loved, I used Drops Baby Alpaca Silk, a gorgeous soft blend of alpaca and silk which will keep the hands nice and toasty.

Another passion of mine is reading and when I saw that Erin from Bringing Up the Burns had organised a reading challenge, I decided to take part with my niece who is also an avid reader. There is a list of 26 prompts that we follow each time we chose a new book.

The first prompt is A Book You Own But Have Not Read, this one was easy. I've had The Girl on the Cliff by Lucinda Riley in my bookcase for a while and is a book I've wanted to read for a while. It hasn't disappointed, from the first couple of pages I was hooked, it is very atmospheric, the characters are interesting and obviously have secrets that haven't been revealed yet which makes this book the sort you just can't put down. It's always just one more chapter!!!!!

I'm linking to Nicole's blog, Frontier Dreams and her Keep Calm Craft On, it's such an inspirational blog and I love looking through all the links with some many gorgeous projects.

I'm also linking to Ginny's Yarn Along where you'll find lots of other posts from people who love knitting and reading and another inspirational blog.

Thank you stopping by, I'll be back soon with one of my own recipes for my homemade Spiced Sweet Potato and Carrot Soup.